On dashed dreams

There should have been another lawyer in The Legal Genealogist‘s family.

Oh there are, and have been, others over the years.

But there should have been one more.

The ability was there.

The desire was there.

Even the opportunity was there: the attorney for whom this family member worked was willing to give this youngster a full ride to get the education needed, whether college or law school, even in the depths of the Great Depression.

But the time period of the Great Depression was a very different time period from today.

And there was one thing this young member of my family lacked in that time and in that place: a father who would understand and support those academic dreams.

Not because the father didn’t understand or value education.

But because he didn’t understand its value for this youngster — his oldest child.

His daughter.

Florence Ravia Gottlieb was the oldest of three children born to Morris and Maude (Cottrell) Gottlieb. Born 23 April 1914 in Cooper, the county seat of Delta County, Texas,1 Ravia can be found first in the records of the 1920 census, living with her parents and siblings in McKinley County, New Mexico.2 She appears next in the 1930 census, living with her family in Bernalillo County, New Mexico.3

In 1930, she graduated from Albuquerque High School4 and worked as a legal secretary for an Albuquerque attorney named John Sims.5 Sims was so impressed by the natural ability of this young woman that he offered her the opportunity to get the education she would have needed to become a lawyer and join him in the practice.6

Ravia’s father Morris was born in Rheinhessen, Germany, in 1883,7 and emigrated to the United States in 1904.8 He came to America at the request of a cousin, another jeweler, who wanted him to work with him in his store in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Morris soon went his own way and met and married Maude Cottrell, my grandfather’s sister, in Fort Worth, Texas, in September 1912.9

Ravia was the first-born child, shown on the left in the image you see above, followed by a son — her brother, Frederick Merledon Gottlieb, in the middle — in 1917,10 and another daughter — her sister, Bobette, on the right — in 1918.11 Morris suffered from tuberculosis and that ailment took the family to New Mexico by 1920. A healthier life, mostly as the owner and operator of trading posts on or near Indian reservations, gave Morris a long life: he lived until 1961, when he died in Albuquerque.12

Morris certainly valued education for his children. But he didn’t see any particular benefit to a higher education for a girl. Not ever, but particularly not then, not during the Great Depression. A steady paycheck and a steady beau were valued much more highly.

So Morris said no to the offer to his daughter. And Ravia dutifully accepted her father’s decision.

She went on to have a good life. In 1937, she married Samuel Ivan Moore in Albuquerque,13 and they raised three children: Richard, Jerrold and Barbara. Ravia too lived a long life: she died at home in Albuquerque, 20 years ago yesterday, on 11 September 1995.14

But to her dying day she had one key regret.

There should have been another lawyer in The Legal Genealogist‘s family.

And, if The Legal Genealogist has so much as a whisper to say about it, no dream of any child in our family will ever again be crushed for no other reason than that the dreamer is a girl.

24 Comments

Yikes. This makes me so sad & angry. I’m glad she had a happy life overall… but I can’t help but think of how different the world might be today if all the young women who were prevented from doing important work had been given the chance to do it. 🙁

Judy – as we know, these kinds of stories were all too common when it came to women. How sad that she always had that one regret. Who was she to you? Just curious.
I really like how you include all your sources in your posts. I have done so, but only occasionally. You inspire me to be better about that.
Thanks for sharing this story.
Diane

As you say, these situations are still with us. When I was in high school in the 1960s, my father, who had been kept by the Depression from attending college, expected his three children to go to college. But he also expected me, the oldest, to train to be a nurse, teacher, or secretary, because I would “just get married, and do what my husband wanted.” Plus, I could follow those careers wherever my husband’s career took him. I’ll give him credit, though. Thirty years later, I decided to quit being a teacher (an honorable profession, just not for me) and go to seminary to follow my own dreams. My father had mellowed and changed his mind about what women could do. He burst his buttons with pride, and participated in my ordination, bragging to his friends about my work as a hospice chaplain. Change comes one person at a time.

My grandmother, Ruth Naomi Stolzenbach, was born in 1918. Her father wanted her to go to college and her older sister, Helen, did attend college; Western Maryland (now McDaniel) in Westminster, Maryland. Ruth considered becoming a lawyer, but then she met and married my grandfather, Leonard George Lindenmeyer, at 19. She too later regretted not going to college and pursuing that dream. Unfortunately, you make the best decisions with the information you have at the time. Luckily for me she married my grandfather, otherwise I would not be here. She was the best grandmother ever and I still miss her every day. She died on September 27, 2001…only 2 weeks after 9/11.

Beautifully written Judy. So many young women never got to realise their potential..o.r fulfil their heart’s desire because of gender stereotyping. Tough financial times only make that a tougher situation.

One of my great-aunts loved (loved, loved, loved) theological studies. Her family did support her in her passions and sent her on to higher education, where she wrote a thesis that I have found referenced even in recent works on the subject she studied. For her, there was a different but related problem – her denomination didn’t ordain women. I often wish that she had lived more recently so that she could have had the career that she wanted, but sadly her sex squashed her dream.

I think they are both awful. Here’s hoping we will someday reach a society where women’s goals and dreams are as supported as men’s.

Judy G. Russell
on September 12, 2015 at 5:38 pm

I share your hope, but it sure won’t be in my lifetime.

Judith Huck
on September 12, 2015 at 6:09 pm

My grandfather, William Frederick Griebel, was put out to work on area farms from the age of 8 until he turned 21. His father received the money for his work. He worked 9 months of the year, and attended school the other 3 months. When one of his teachers told his father that he had a lot of ability and should be in school full time, his father said, “What for? He’s not going to be a preacher!”

Debra Hoffman, my mother died the exact same day as your grandmother. She went to college and wanted to be a secretary–her dad did not allow that. Second choice was to be a teacher, but again, no. He insisted she study music, which she did, married my father just after they both graduated and was a farm wife and mother for several years. Her father died 2 weeks before my birth, when she was only 23 (she was the youngest child, only girl in their family). She went back to college and got her teaching degree and started teaching when I was in 6th grade, a career she really loved for 15 years, until an illness prevented her from continuing. My parents had 2 girls, put us both thru college and my sister thru her master’s, also, and would have done the same for me, but I had no interest in going further. I had friends who had a brother who was put thru college, but she, as a girl, had to pay for her own education. So much unfairness, even in this day and age, alas.

I’m glad she did. A good example for us–we used to go with her sometimes to college (30 miles from our home) in the summers. I’m sure it was not easy for her, and teaching was not an easy job, either, but one that she loved and was well thought of by so many in our school, I think (she taught elementary grades). My dad was supportive, so I’m sure that helped.

Judy G. Russell
on September 12, 2015 at 11:30 pm

Your Dad’s support probably helped a lot!

Melody Lassalle
on September 13, 2015 at 1:03 am

We’ll never know how many brilliant people we lost out on because parents either could not afford an education or did not believe in it. There is an amazing book called Rocket Girl about the first female rocket scientist in America. She was the person who figured out rocket fuel. When she was a child, her parents didn’t believe children needed an education and only agreed to schooling because the state forced them to. She was 8 when the state forced her into school. She could not read or write. Had it not been mandatory, we would have missed out on her brilliance.

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